Chapter 562

So it wasn’t just pride,

he thought.

It was recruitment.

He looked at Darnell. “Did anyone join?”

Darnell shook his head once. “A few hesitated. Most didn’t. Your five did their job, cut the talk down fast. Instructors held the line.”

Ludger’s gaze moved back to the prisoners.

“Then why the chains?” he asked.

Darnell’s expression turned colder. “Because after we told them to leave peacefully, they tried to force their way back into the yard. When that failed, they tried to start a fight with the guards. When that failed…”

He paused.

“…they tried to jump a northerner outside the gate to ‘prove a point.’”

The air in Ludger’s chest went still.

He stared at the chained trainees, seeing them clearly now, not as “problem recruits,” but as what they’d actually chosen to become.

A spark. A test. A deliberate attempt to light something bigger. Ludger exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled.

“Good,” he said finally.

Darnell blinked. “Good?”

“That you chained them,” Ludger replied, voice flat. “And that you didn’t let them make it into a riot. They were lucky, if I were around, I would have broken all of their limbs.”

Darnell’s mouth twitched, half approval, half fatigue. “I figured you’d say that.”

Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly, already moving to the next decision. The chained men shifted again, some suddenly uneasy. Because now they weren’t dealing with instructors.

They were dealing with the person whose rules they’d tried to turn into a spectacle. And Ludger didn’t do spectacles. He did outcomes. Ludger walked closer to the wagon without hurrying. He didn’t need to.

The guards shifted instinctively, tightening their grip on spears and hafts as he approached, not because they feared him, because they understood what that calm meant.

The chained trainees watched him. Some tried to hold his gaze. Most failed.

Ludger stopped at the side of the wagon and simply

looked

at them.

Not a glare. Not a performance. A silent, steady stare that made the air feel heavier.

One of the men swallowed hard. Another flinched and looked away. A third’s jaw clenched, then loosened as if he’d realized defiance wasn’t a shield. Ludger’s eyes moved from face to face, slow and methodical, memorizing.

He wanted to interrogate them.

He wanted to ask the clean question first,

who sent you?

and then peel the rest apart with pressure and patience. Because this didn’t feel like random anger. This felt like someone testing his training yard the same way bandits tested a gate.

He turned his head slightly toward Darnell.

“Who?” Ludger said quietly.

Darnell understood immediately. He didn’t pretend otherwise. His expression stayed dry, but his eyes were sharp.

“We’re on it,” Darnell said. “Full investigation.”

Ludger didn’t move. “Good.”

Darnell gestured toward the wagon, voice tightening just a fraction.

“Trying to get in the way of a guild’s business is a crime,” he said. “Making a public scene is one thing. Trying to incite conflict, sabotage recruitment, stir violence? That’s interference.”

He spat the next part like it tasted bad.

“And if another guild is behind it, if this was someone else trying to choke Lionsguard growth, then it’s worse. Much worse.”

Ludger’s gaze returned to the prisoners, colder now. Interference wasn’t just disrespect. It was war by other methods. He nodded once, slow.

“Then don’t treat it like a tantrum,” Ludger said.

Darnell’s mouth twitched. “I wasn’t planning to.”

Ludger stared at the men in chains again, long enough that the smallest one started breathing faster like his lungs had forgotten how to behave.

Darnell gave a short nod back, satisfied that the responsibility was clear, then waved his guards onward. The wagon creaked forward again toward the holding area, chains clinking like a warning to anyone watching from the street.

Ludger let them go. He didn’t chase the anger. He filed it. Because it probably wasn’t a coincidence. They’d acted while he was gone for a week.

That meant timing. That meant intent. Someone had assumed Lionfang would wobble without him present, that the instructors would fold, that the northerners would start brawling, that the training yard would become a spark pile.

He’d expected trouble, he always did.

What still surprised him, every time, was how many people were willing to do something

stupid

against his guild. As if Lionsguard was just another soft frontier guild that could be bullied through rumors and a few loud mouths.

They were going to learn. One way or another.

He walked deeper into Lionfang toward the guildhall, eyes scanning out of habit, mind already shifting from “problem” to “response.”

And as he moved, he saw the quieter proof that the town was still functioning without him holding every beam.

Near the forge, a handful of newcomers were working under Raukor’s supervision. Their posture was wrong, too stiff, too cautious, but their hands were learning. Bellows. Tongs. Heat control. The boring foundations that turned boys into smiths instead of burn victims.

Raukor barked a correction and one of them jumped like he’d been struck, then immediately fixed his grip. Good. Fear was useful if it became discipline.

Further down, near the new cloth hall, others were helping Julia’s group. Not the complicated work, nothing that could ruin silk, but simple knitting, basic stitching, sorting bundles, learning tension control with cheap thread before they ever touched spider fiber.

A few of the older trainees were there too, faces serious, hands moving carefully. People who weren’t good at letters, but were good at repetition. Good at craft. Good at producing something real.

Ludger watched it for a moment, expression calm. Delegation. Redirection. Apprenticeships. The machine was forming. Even with sabotage attempts. Even with politics circling. Even with him gone. He exhaled slowly through his nose.

Good.

Then his eyes hardened, not with anger, but with decision.

It was time to take the next step.

A month passed.

Not peacefully, Lionfang never did anything

peacefully

, but without the kind of disasters that forced Ludger to burn mana and blood just to keep the town standing.

There were still problems. There were always problems.

A few more complaints from neighboring lords. Some minor fights that ended fast once instructors made examples. Merchants trying to bargain like the Lionsguard were desperate. Trainees quitting the moment they realized discipline meant doing things that weren’t fun.

Normal. Manageable.

The newest group of newcomers was still undergoing training, still being ground into shape by routine and rules and the simple cruelty of running until your lungs learned obedience. But when Ludger looked over the yard one morning, the line was thinner.

Half of them were no longer there. And for once, that didn’t feel like failure. It felt like sorting.

Some had been told to leave, problematic kids who couldn’t stop testing boundaries, whispering poison, or trying to turn training into politics. They’d been removed early, before they could rot the rest.

Ten had become apprentices under Raukor. Quiet hands, stubborn minds, people who couldn’t memorize letters but could memorize heat and metal and timing. They worked with heat marks and determination, learning the kind of skill that didn’t care about noble titles.

Twenty had begun working under Julia. They weren’t masters, not yet, but they were steady. Sorting, stitching, learning tension control, building the foundation for a craftline that would keep Lionfang fed long after the next war came.

The rest…

The rest had either adapted or left on their own. And that was exactly the rhythm Ludger wanted. Not a flood of bodies. A stream of useful people.

A guild that didn’t grow because it collected everyone, but because it kept the ones who fit, and discarded the ones who didn’t before they became a problem.

Ludger stood at the edge of the yard, watching sweat and discipline and progress churn together, and for a brief moment he allowed himself a quiet, practical satisfaction.

The machine was working. Now he just had to keep it working when the world pushed back harder. Once the month settled into something resembling rhythm, Ludger started selling runic gear. Carefully.

Not artifacts. Not “legendary” nonsense that would drag every ambitious noble within a hundred miles to Lionfang with a smile and a contract.

Just bracers. Simple on the outside, dark metal, sturdy straps, practical build. The Lionsguard crest stamped clean into the plate: a lion’s head on a shield. A mark that said

guild-made

and

guild-backed.

The runework was the real point.

Overdrive.

Not a permanent boost. Not a safe one either. A controlled surge, ten minutes of borrowed intensity before the bracer’s channels warped and cracked under the strain.

After ten minutes, the bracer would break apart.

Not explosively, not dangerously, Ludger made sure of that. It failed clean, the rune circuits burning out and the inlay fracturing so it couldn’t be reused without repair.

A consumable. A tool, not a treasure. And they sold like water. Adventurers in particular loved them. Because ten minutes was enough.

Enough to turn a bad fight into a winnable one. Enough to punch through a boss’s defense. Enough to sprint out of a collapsing tunnel. Enough to hold a line until help arrived.

For most people, it was the difference between

running

and

dying.

And the effect was obscene for anyone with the stamina to handle it. Up to five times stronger. Not forever, just long enough to matter.

The buyers didn’t complain about the bracers breaking.

They thanked him for making them break

after

the ten minutes instead of during.

They came back with coin in hand, eyes bright with the same hungry logic Ludger respected and hated. If you could buy ten minutes of power… you could buy ten minutes of survival.

And as the bracers moved, crest spreading, Overdrive rumor spreading, Lionfang’s name spreading, Ludger watched the flow of customers with calm eyes and a quiet understanding.

He wasn’t just selling boosts. He was selling dependency. And dependency, handled correctly, turned into control. Ludger sold the bracers himself. Not because he enjoyed dealing with customers. He didn’t.

He did it for two reasons. The first was simple. His

Merchant

job.

Every sale wasn’t just a coin, it was a lot of experience for job. Negotiation, pricing, reputation management, supply timing. The system liked results. It leveled faster when he handled the exchange directly, when the deal was his voice and his hands and his judgment.

The second reason was more important.

The roads.

Coin flowed in and out of Lionfang now. Silk, froststeel, supplies, tools, rune materials, everything moved on wheels. And wheels moved on roads. And roads, in the north, were a joke told by mud and rocks. Ludger wanted to change that. Not with speeches. With infrastructure.

He wanted rails along the shipment routes. Not the fancy kind from old imperial cities, just something that turned “random dirt path” into a predictable track. A hardened guide for wagon wheels, two grooves that kept heavy loads stable and made travel faster, safer, cheaper.

Iron would be the best option. Proper rails would last. Proper rails would laugh at rain.

But iron was expensive, and iron was better spent on weapons, bracers, and armor until Lionfang’s foundations were truly secure.

So for now, he did the next best thing.

He hardened the ground. He shaped the roadbed with earth magic, compacted it into dense layers, carved clean lines for wheels to follow, reinforced weak sections with stone ribs. It wasn’t elegant, but it worked. It turned muddy chaos into something that behaved.

The downside was obvious.

Maintenance.

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